


drive

by blamethenargless



Category: Lockwood & Co. - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotions, Everyone is Dead, F/F, Like lots of em, holly is a little suicidal, not really but, she doesn't care if she lives or dies, sort of a personality swap, the only characters alive are flo holly lucy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 18:46:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blamethenargless/pseuds/blamethenargless
Summary: Holly forces her vision back on the road. The last thing she needs is a crash.Then, she thinks, she wouldn’t be opposed to one.Then, she thinks, she wouldn’t want Lucy to be hurt.Then, she thinks, she wouldn’t quite like to get hurt herself.Then, she thinks, she’s a very fickle person and toys with life like it’s a game. And maybe she should go back to taking it more seriously.orHolly and Lucy go for a late-night drive.





	drive

**Author's Note:**

> All credits to the author, as always. Enjoy!

 

Holly knows it’s unbelievably stupid to be out after curfew, but she has a rapier in the passenger’s seat, three and a half cups of coffee coursing through her system, and very little will to live, so really, the ghosts should be fearing  _ her _ .

It’s nice to tear down the street, fast, so fast, signs blurring on either side in waves of yellow and red, ignoring street lights because she knows she’s the only car out at this time of night. The window is rolled down and one hand dangles lazily out of it, the other steering with something she could almost call reckless abandon. It’s been a long few days. She hasn’t slept enough. She needs this time for herself, to be free. And if she ends up dead, well. It was bound to happen at some point, wasn’t it?

She laughs to herself now, thinking about the incident. That’s what she calls it. The incident. Because she can’t bring herself to name the night when her entire team was murdered. Because as much as she puts on a front, she’s really not alright and she’s really very scared and she’s alone. She’s been alone for years, now.

Holly’s twenty-three. She hasn’t been constrained to an agency since seventeen, since she quit from Rotwell. She had a brief stint with Anthony Lockwood’s joke of an agency, but she doesn’t count one month of being a secretary as a proper job. Plus, she never even really got fired or quit, because he and his partner, the sarcastic intelligent one who she’d sneak Lockwood’s Choco Leibniz with, both got killed in the field. Now she mostly freelances, getting paid the bare minimum for swinging a sword at a weak Glimmer or for throwing a magnesium flare at a Shade and hoping for the best. Her Talent--which wasn’t strong to begin with--is gone now. She can pass as any age from sixteen to thirty, though, so she has no trouble getting jobs and saying she still has some Talent. It’s her skin, she thinks. She can look older because of her lack of blemishes, but younger because it’s always been, well, youthful-looking.

She prides herself on her appearance. Holly Munro is very, very pretty, and she’d be damned if she didn’t know it. She’s somewhat of a pathological flirt, with men and women alike, and though she’s only ever been interested in the latter, she’s not above using her dainty features and glossy hair to get what she wants.

It’s a cruel world. She’s changed a lot from the girl she once was: kind, thoughtful, selfless. Also, very healthy. Now she’s all edges and bad habits and breaking the cardinal rule of don’t-get-ghost-touched and she thinks she likes it better this way, running headfirst into danger and not knowing,  _ really _ not knowing, if there’s any chance of getting out alive.

After Lockwood and company-mate died, she read a small obituary about them and their business in the papers. It said the eponymous boy’s parents had been on the brink of a discovery for the source of the Problem, and that the partner was closing in on finishing that research. Oh, well. Holly doesn’t particularly care, if she’s being honest. She didn’t then, and she doesn’t now. Her business is fighting ghosts, not trying to make small talk with them and figure out why, exactly, they do whatever the hell it is that they do. 

A cold breeze dances across the side of her neck, tracing its way down her collarbone; she shivers, but doesn’t pull her eyes from the road ahead. Tonight, she feels, she couldn’t care less if she lives or dies.

There’s more ghosts than there have ever been. Since the Chelsea outbreak (the case the Lockwood duo died on), they’ve come twofold each year, and it’s been a near five years from then. Marissa Fittes puts out new theories and tech each week, but Holly’s taken to ignoring it all. It barely even registered to her when, a few months ago, the head of Rotwell died in a mysterious accident and his company was absorbed into Fittes. Not like it affects her, really, and Holly doesn’t bother with what doesn’t affect her.

She turns onto a sidestreet, into the poor part of town where the buildings are gathered and stacked in tight columns, the roads narrow and the air stale. She comes from a good family, a well off family, and though her relationship with them is distant, it still exists. Occasionally, a check will show up in her mailbox or on her doorstep and her parents haven’t reached out to her in years but she’s an only child, so she knows. She gets enough to get by and stay out of the neighbourhood she’s now driving through.

The buildings are brick, with chips of mortar flaking down the side. She can see a girl reading on her bed through an open first-floor window. Holly thinks she Hears a whisper, a cry, and Sees a glint of sickly green drift behind the girl, but she doesn’t give it a second thought. If she’s not getting paid for it, there’s no point.

When she looks again, glancing back through her car mirror, the girl’s neck is black-blue, her eyes glassy, her fingers, still gripping the book, a deathly white. Holly drives on.

A sharp left and the streets open up again, making way for malls and high-end brand stores. The mannequins seem to condescend as she passes, tilting their heads towards her and smiling, their clothes sparkling with what could have been. She rolls her eyes and rolls up the window, pushing her foot further to the floor, the lights a blur as she rushes past. 

She’s driving through a park, now, the trees looming on either side. She’s dumb–near suicidal–for this whole plot, but an abandoned near-woodland area at midnight probably rampant with ghosts? That’s practically a guarantee for ghost-touch.

The trees are growing sparser, and a lake is visible close up front. Holly draws closer, the car slowing, with ideas of taking a walk about it.

As she reaches 15 km/h, a pale blurr opens her door and bolts inside. For a moment, she panics, eyes widening with fear as her heart beats a one-two-one-two in doubletime. And then she remembers the rapier in the passenger’s seat, and that if this was a ghost, it would be hurting badly. And then her vision clears and she sees a girl crouched to her left, shutting the door quickly behind her.

“Drive,” she whispers, and Holly almost misses it, but then looks in the rearview mirror and sees trails of ectoplasm and guns the ignition, not waiting for the stowaway to fasten her seatbelt.

The lake passes quickly to Holly’s right, and beyond that, trees stream in and out of clarity as the speedometer climbs. The sky, midnight-black overhead, is unchanging but for the crescent moon weaving in and out of the tangle of branches as the road twists beneath. They drive for something that feels like hours, but what turns out to be, when Holly consults the thick watch strapped to her wrist, just twelve minutes even. The car lurches to a halt, the ghost long gone.

Her breath comes out shakily. “Must have been strong,” she says, mostly to herself, “for me to See even a bit of it.”

The girl nods. “Yes. I never had much Sight in the first place and now I’m old and I could still glimpse it.” She places the rapier on the bottom of the car, brings her legs up on the seat, and puts her head in her knees, not looking towards Holly.

“I’m Holly Munro.” She holds out a hand, but the girl doesn’t take it. “I’m twenty-three and a freelance ghost hunter.” _ Because even if I’ve got no Talent at this point I’ve got pure skill, and that’s enough to get by,  _ she thinks sardonically to herself.

“Lucy Carlyle,” the girl responds, tucking a lock of her straight brown bob behind her ear. Holly notices a nick on the top of it, what looks like a slash from a rapier. It’s oddly endearing. “Thanks for saving me.”

Holly laughs dryly. “Well, I had no choice. You threw yourself into my car, and I wasn’t going to take the time to kick you out before getting away from that Visitor.”

Lucy’s head drops at this. Holly feels a tug in her chest at her patheticism, but ignores it. Instead, she busies herself with the car keys, fiddling mindlessly.

“I used to work like that. I used to freelance, too, after my team got killed on a mission.” Lucy’s voice is steady. She’s told the story many times, it’s clear. Still, though, Holly senses an anxiousness underneath the short girl’s words.

“Same here. We’ve all got messed up childhoods, you’re not special.” Holly ties up her hair in a bun and sits back in her seat, eyeing Lucy with much boredom.

“Yeah. Well. It was hard.”

“Mm.”

“And then I went to find work but no one would take me and I was about to go apply at that Lockwood place but then didn’t because it was late and I was tired and the next day I fell ill and then they filled the position.” It comes out in a rush, as if she’s trying to explain herself and her situation. As if she’s apologizing for her being.  _ Which _ , Holly thinks,  _ she probably is _ . 

Holly raises her eyebrows archly. “Better that you didn’t, because they’re dead now.”

Lucy shudders. “Yes. I’m not dead, at least.”

“Sometimes I think it wouldn’t be the worst thing, really.” And at that, they lapse back into silence. 

Holly lets her hair down, then does it up again. 

“That was me, actually.”

“What?” Lucy looks up in confusion, her brown eyes, dull a moment ago, sparked with curiosity.  _ She’s pretty _ , Holly thinks.

“That was me. The filled position. Me. But they didn’t take me seriously. No one really does.” She gestures at herself, at her prim blouse and her unscuffed boots. And then she gestures at her face, her soft features, her dark skin. “People don’t like what’s different from them. And they don’t think I’m capable, usually. So I was but a glorified secretary at Lockwood’s. I’m sure you would have been treated better, but you’re still a girl.”

“Oh.”

“But they’re dead, and I’m not. And that’s just the way it goes.”

Lucy seems taken aback at Holly’s bluntness, but also too frightened to say anything against it. After a bit, she extends her legs and sits normally. She looks drained, all of her, from her pasty skin to her downcast eyes to the faded black overcoat that swamps her too-thin frame. The tug rises again in Holly’s chest, and this time, she can’t ignore it.

She opens the glove compartment and pulls out a box. “Choco Leibnz?”

Lucy smiles gratefully and takes one, making quick work of it. Her smile is quite a pretty thing.

“So, while we’re here,” starts Holly, kicking her feet up on the dash, “tell me about yourself. I think we’re safe enough from Visitors at the moment, and I don’t quite feel like calling it a night yet.”

Lucy swallows and sits up a little straighter. “Well, I told you about my lack of job prospects. So I’ve been in a sort of beneficial coexistence with this relicwoman who makes shop by the Thames. Her name is Bones. Or, that’s what she goes by.”

Holly lets out a sound, loud and cutting. It takes them both a moment to realize it’s supposed to be a laugh. “Florence Bonnard. She likes to pretend she’s hardened and cruel, but she’s just secretly an Anglophilic Frenchie who covers her accent well. I used to date her, a few years back. When we were, I don’t know, twenty and eighteen respectively? She must be a few years older than you.”

“I’m twenty-one, same as her.”

“You’re very short.”

“I know.”

Holly continues. “Anyways, Flo’s a good girl. I’m still friends with her myself. Great with a sword; I remember she beat even that Lockwood, who I’ve heard to have been quite talented. When he was alive. But she  _ also _ had a depressing childhood, her friends died in front of her, you know how it goes. I bet you there’s not one person with Talent in all of England that didn’t see their team perish. Anyway, halfway through eighteen, she lost it a bit, went to live by the river, broke up with me, and started going through a bag of liquorice a day. She’d mentioned she’d met someone new, but I always took it as she had a new girlfriend or boyfriend, not whatever you are. Mostly I tune her out, though.”

Lucy’s smile widens. “Thank you for that information. No, not a girlfriend. She gives me some stipends and I run errands for her she doesn’t want to. She’s very secretive, even though we’ve had this relationship or whatnot for almost a year now. I do think she’s pretty under the grime, though.” Her cheeks redden.

“That she is. Fair as anything, with rather nice hair when she washes it, and some freckles. I do enjoy freckles.” She looks at the dotting along Lucy’s jaw out of the corner of her eye, and just restrains herself from winking. The poor girl would probably faint. She adjusts her position, crossing her left leg over her right up on the dash. “Family life?”

“What, is this a first date?” There’s a playful bite in the way Lucy shakes her hair back over her shoulder. And for a second, Holly can see what she could have been underneath all the fear, can see that girl of sixteen making tireless rounds and looking for work, can see her fail, keep going, fail, keep going, fail. And then she stopped. Something happened, and she stopped. And it’s five years later and she’s cracked, but not broken. Not yet.

“Wouldn’t say no.”

Lucy blushes in earnest, rubbing at the back of her neck. “Can I have another of the Choco Leibnz? Thanks. Well, after losing work, I went back to my family for a bit. Didn’t start with Bones until recently. Because the family kicked me out.”

“Explain.”

“Alright. So I went back to my family, worked on the farm situation they have set up for a few years. Still went back into the city to pursue work occasionally, but I think the two year anniversary of the Chelsea outbreak and nothing improving, I just gave up. I was nineteen. Went back home for good. And then…” Lucy trails off, her voice shaky.

“Go on.”

“Right. Well. And then I told my mother that I was bisexual when I was twenty, and she cut off relations. And I found Bones, and here I am.” She shrugs weakly, closing in on herself once more. 

Holly rolls her eyes at the girl’s self-pity, and grabs her arm. “Don’t cry on me now. It’s pathetic. Where shall I take you? I think you need some rest.”

“Ah, thank you. Just drop me on the bank of the Thames near the Lambeth bridge. I’ll find Bones and make camp.”

Holly looks at her, thinking, calculating. “Oh, hell. I’m feeling sorry for you, aren’t I. No, I won’t do that. I’ll bring you home with me.”

“And you don’t have any… roommates or anyone who might be bothered?” On Lucy’s face is thinly disguised hope.

Holly hums softly, and feels the back of her neck heat up. “No. I had a girlfriend, she worked at DEPRAC, but that was almost a year ago, and she’s dead now, so you’re in luck.”

Lucy’s eyes widen at the flippant way Holly treats death and romance, but Holly doesn’t really care. If she judges, let her judge. But quickly Lucy reworks her expression and gives her thanks again and they’re off.

Holly loves the journey back into central London. The ghostlamps cast a blue tinge on the street, and it reflects its way onto Lucy’s face. In this light, she looks fierce, cutting. Her jaw is sharp and her cheekbones hollow. Her eyes are no longer dull but lit with blue fire, and there’s something sparking deep within. She’s almost beautiful.

Holly forces her vision back on the road. The last thing she needs is a crash.

Then, she thinks, she wouldn’t be opposed to one.

Then, she thinks, she wouldn’t want Lucy to be hurt.

Then, she thinks, she wouldn’t quite like to get hurt herself.

Then, she thinks, she’s a very fickle person and toys with life like it’s a game. And maybe she should go back to taking it more seriously.

Almost too soon, they’re back at her flat, and Holly gets out of the car quick to open the passenger’s side door, helping Lucy out and holding on to her hand for just a second too long. Keys in the lock, the door frame rattling with age, and Holly shows the way to the sofa.

“I don’t have a guest room, but you can freshen up that way–” she points over her left shoulder “–and I should have a spare toothbrush. I’m nearly out of shampoo, so don’t use up all of it. I’ll lay out some pyjamas for you as well. Anything else?”

Lucy steels her expression and surges forwards and grabs Holly’s face and kisses her, hard. It takes less than a second for her to pull away, and when she does, she meets Holly’s gaze. “Could I have a cup of tea as well?"

And for the first time in too long, Holly genuinely smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos/Comments always appreciated :)


End file.
